Grasping Perception
by CorellianAngel
Summary: Princess Leia finds that understanding and controlling what's inside, involves seeing the world through the eyes of the person most unlike herself. Han/Leia on Hoth angst and romance. Rebellion era - pre ESB. Trigger warnings apply.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I don't own any of this. Disney lets me peep in on Han and Leia and gosh, whaddayah know, I blushed. ALOT. Disney lets me share the story with you as long as we don't get paid for it. So let's keep our voices hushed and enjoy the show.

A/N: This is a story for the Tumblr prompt Han and Leia Appreciation Week Day 4 "Hoth" for the blog han-leia-solo. I wrote it on day four but submitted day five. Oh well. Then it became two, no three chapters. *sigh* Better late than never.

Timeline: pre-ESB Hoth

* * *

 **Grasping Perception**

 **Chapter One**

* * *

"Go back into that dark alley you crawled out of you filthy minded Corellian gutter rat!" The petite princess finally snarled in irritation at the tall brown haired pilot looming over her. Princess Leia continued, unabashed at what she had just uttered in public. Gods! He got her riled with his teasing and flirting. "I have no intention of letting you just…." She trailed off, faltering at his expression. The background hum of activity in the command center had died down suddenly. Han Solo's eyes widened and he took a small step back. He ran a hand through his unruly hair and paused to gawp down at her in ill-disguised shock. She noticed his glittering hazel eyes shift to a dangerous dark gray green. He worked his jaw side to side as if chewing on what he wanted to say to her in retort.

Instead he turned on his booted heel and nodded curtly to General Rieekan. "I'm outta here at twenty two hundred hours." The general met Han's eyes and inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement.

"Han…" Leia started without realizing how informally she had addressed him. She began to reach for his arm.

Han briefly glanced at her, then stormed out towards the door. He was almost through it when he slammed into Wedge Antilles, who was just in reporting back from his patrol. Their shoulders bounced off one another. Han stopped the young fighter pilot in his tracks with a finger pointed at Wedge's chest. He hissed what sounded like an accusation at the younger pilot in their mother tongue.

Wedge considered the silent command center momentarily and then his eyes travelled back to the fuming smuggler confronting him. He shook his head emphatically, the meaning clear. _No._

Han's finger retracted into his fist and he seemed to shake it in warning at his fellow Corellian. Then with a snarl, he was out the door, striding angrily down the icy halls of the Rebel base, his booted feet echoing behind him.

Leia slapped her datapad down on the console, scowling at Rieekan. "I can't believe you would just let him out there. The Imperials have that region nearly locked down. He'll never get past the sentry ships."

General Rieekan smiled grimly at Leia. "Your Highness, we need those generator core stabilizers. Solo is the best pilot we have with the best ship for the mission. He has the bargaining skills and the contacts to get us a fair price. The window for getting out of Hoth's system and still avoiding the Imperial sector patrols is getting smaller by the day. Someone _has_ to go, and soon."

"It doesn't have to be him. I would be a much better candidate for negotiating the deal." She mumbled, studying her gloved hand. She knew the general was right at heart. Han was the most qualified and they all knew it. She just hated seeing him leave. He drove her into a blind rage half the time with his insubordination, bluster, and incessant flirting. _Not that she minded the flirting_. It brought a warm glow to her center and Leia typically bandied back at him. Their flirtation was usually witty and playful. He pushed, tempted and teased, and she argued, deflected and insulted him back. It was an innocent game, but today she had lost her temper and hurled something at him that had clearly opened a wound.

She had never considered the rough and tumble Han Solo, with all his courage, seeming indifference and bravado, actually could be hurt by her words.

"Alright then, clear the flight-line for him for twenty-two hundred." She finally agreed. "I'll give him the information he needs, the navigation co-ordinates and any orders." She tapped the datapad rapidly in front of her. The general turned to a lieutenant to relay the flight clearance.

"Highness," Rieekan started after a moment. Leia looked up at the older man. He had a thin gentle smile on his face, eyes full of concern for the young woman he felt a fatherly responsibility to. "It's twenty hundred hours. " She caught his meaning and began to gather up the unsteady pile of flimsies and datapads. Rieekan put his large hand gently over her arm, slowing her. On Alderaan he would have never touched his monarch. Never even been allowed to get close. But here, their world and people obliterated by the Death Star, protocols collapsed and they became human beings of an almost equal level.

It was her turn to nod solemnly. She grabbed only the relevant datachips now and hurried to the command center door when she noticed her protocol droid. "Come along Threepio." Leia instructed the tall metallic droid.

C-3P0 responded in his core-worlds prissy voice as she marched through the corridor, "Of course Mistress Leia! I will be most pleased to assist you with the…" He didn't finish as she whirled and put her finger over the rectangular speech synthesizer that served as the droid's 'mouth'. The hallway around the pair was momentarily empty of personnel.

"Threepio, what did Han say?" The princess probed the droid quietly, keeping an eye out for anyone that might stumble into their conversation. Then she quickly clarified, "To Wedge I mean."

The stiff golden hued robot quoted literally in his own annoying accent, a much less gruff version of the language Han had hurled at Wedge.

Sighing, Leia pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation, squeezing her eyes shut. "No, no, Threepio. A translation, _please._ " She emphasized.

"I believe ma'am, the polite translation would be 'Did you tell her anything?' The literal translation is rather offensive I believe. It was- " She had cut him off again with a swipe of her hand in dismissal.

"No, that's enough Threepio. I get the idea." She pushed the stack of necessary mission information into the droid's hands. His metal fingers snapped shut lightly over the surface of the pile. "When we get to the hangar I want you to give these to Chewbacca and inform him of the flight status. After that, get back to General Rieekan and personally inform him of the delivery." _That would keep Threepio out of her hair for a bit._

She hurried away from her droid, ignoring C-3P0's indignant "Well, really!" The chill in the ice caverns' air deepened as Leia entered one of the vast hangars of the Rebels' base. Pilots and technicians straightened and saluted as she strode past. A half dozen x-wing pilots from Wedge's patrol clustered around a heater stationed near their fighters. They stiffened as she went by, the conversation quietened. She responded with courteous nods to each individual or group, still feeling their questioning gazes on her back when she was out of earshot.

This hangar had been a vast glacial cavern, naturally eroded and after artificially expanded by rebel engineers to accommodate mainly the snowspeeders and snub fighters. The cargo and passenger transports, along with other midsized starships resided in another larger hangar nearer the surface of the glacier. In the hangar that Leia rushed through, the sleek fighters surrounded an ancient dilapidated looking light freighter that she made a bee-line for. C-3P0 was left scurrying and complaining halfway across the hangar by her quick pace. He headed in the direction of his princess and the Millennium Falcon. A two and a half metre tall furry being on top of the starboard mandible stopped working and waved congenially at Leia when she approached. He roared a warm welcome when she stopped beneath him.

"Hi Chewie. " She responded with friendly affection for the smuggler's co-pilot. Leia studied the bay area around the Falcon before continuing in a lower voice. "Is Ha- Captain Solo around?" She corrected herself quickly. The rumor mill on base regularly featured the latest spat, and what it all might mean between the princess and the smuggler. She felt no need to reinforce the ridiculous theories of her staff by being too casual sounding about the handsome pilot.

Chewbacca responded with an expressive wave of his shaggy arms, roaring and growling at her in his native language. Having known the smuggling pair for nearly three years, she could just barely pick out the odd individual word or name amongst his growls. She recognized the sounds he used for her, Luke, Han, the droids and the Falcon itself, everything else was an interpretation of his gestures, eyes and facial expressions. She vowed to herself that if someday Han and Chewie actually bothered to officially commit to the Rebellion, she would have the Wookiee teach her more of his species' complex tongue.

Tonight, Chewie's gesticulations were clear. Han had gone up to the observation level on top of the base near the glacier's edge. And Han was angry.

Eyeing Threepio as he approached the Falcon, Leia decided to hustle. She didn't want the droid following her. Leia thanked Chewbacca, wishing him a good prep and flight. He grinned down at her from his perch and cooed in the direction she needed to head to confront Han. She managed to slip away just as the protocol droid ambled up behind her to pester the Wookiee. As soon as the last Princess of Alderaan estimated she was out of view, she broke into a brisk jog.

What she didn't notice was Wedge Antilles sauntering up to the group of pilots at the far end of the hangar from the Falcon, filling them in on the latest drama in the control room. There were a few groans and high-fives. Credits were exchanged, new wagers were made, and the Rebel Alliance gossip mill started grinding again.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I don't own any of this. Disney lets me peep in on Han and Leia and gosh, whaddayah know, I blushed. ALOT. Disney lets me share the story with you as long as we don't get paid for it. So let's keep our voices hushed and enjoy the show.

A/N: This is a story for the Tumblr prompt Han/Leia Appreciation Week Day 4 "Hoth" hosted by the blog **han-leia-solo**. I wrote it on day four but submitted part one on day five. And then it became two parts. Okay maybe three. Oh well. Better late than never.

I'd like to think this a cute bonding chapter between Han and Leia. But really it's a thinly disguised verbose ogling of our Hoth Han. ;) Oh, and an intro into the main kernel of the story.

Remember- Comments make baby Wookiees smile. Many thanks to my chapter one early commentors: Mal'ury'ush, Statsgrandma57, knitzkampf and guest. You inspired me to run with this story.

Timeline: Star Wars rebellion era. pre-ESB Hoth

* * *

 **Grasping Perception**

 **Chapter Two**

* * *

Princess Leia jogged lightly down the salvaged star cruiser decking lining the icy accessway to the rebel base's upper observation deck. She avoided a full tilt run to prevent skidding on the slippery portions between the flooring sections haphazardly placed along the corridor. A sign caught her eye, she slowed, turned left, took a few short steps and pushing with all her might, slid aside a heavy manual door leading to a metal spiral staircase rising up into a tunnel leading to the exterior. A series of dim illumination panels on the walls automatically brightened at her movement in the room, the translucent ice absorbing and reflecting a deep teal luster. With a grunt of effort she slid the hatch closed behind her. The chill of the access stair's hall sent a shiver through her slight frame. She reached behind her head and unfurled a white fur trimmed hood from a hidden pouch in the neck of her thermal jumpsuit, snuggled it over her elaborately braided hair, framing her round face. With a sigh Leia started up the frost encrusted staircase.

As she trudged up the stairs, Leia reflected on what had brought her here. What exactly had she yelled at Han that had sent him off? He never reacted to her insults. Why today? If she wanted to, she could literally command Wedge to tell her whatever he might know regarding it. But she didn't want to abuse her authority as a commander for what might be a personal issue. Leia stopped at a landing halfway up, catching her breath. Should she really care if she had hurt the feelings of some two-bit smuggler that cared only for himself? Why did she find herself chasing after that ass when they argued? She had sworn to herself she would try not to think about _that_ part, or those annoyingly mischievous eyes, the way his hips moved when he sauntered away, that wide feline grin that held promise of… Well, she had better stop thinking about that too. She hated the fact he'd made her feel like a love-struck teenager the moment she had set eyes upon him. He made Leia feel she could lower her shields around him and just be a friend, a confidante, maybe something else she barely dared to think about– and that just scared the hell out her.

In any case he needed to be informed of the mission, and odds were, his comlink was shut off, as it always was when they squabbled. Leia growled irritably to herself and started again on her ascent, again mentally inventorying all the things she thought she disliked about Captain Han Solo; _Damn Corellian overconfident, immature, swaggering, thinks he's oh so smart, tight pants squeezing his little brain, mouthy, disheveled…_ Leia groused.

Arriving at the top, she paused at a wall console and punched in a series of codes to unlock the door at the surface of the glacier. The round access was a repurposed hatch from an old blockade runner starship. The aperture split into three sections that retracted into the surrounding metal panel that was set horizontally into the thick ice. The machinery squealed and complained as the frozen gears worked. _No point in trying to be quiet._ Leia thought, irritated.

Ascending the last staircase that led straight up to the exit, the temperature dropped significantly as she crested the glacier. An uncharacteristic stillness permeated the icesheet, the typical bone chilling wind absent. Her breath caught at the invisible wall of extreme cold that slapped her in face. The princess emerged from the round door and gingerly stepped onto the hard surface of the icefield, the door cycled shut behind her white booted feet. Scanning the indigo surface of the icefield, her brown eyes settled on a lone dark shape seated near an outcrop that hung over the large doors for the ships entering the hangar bay. The snow crunched noisily under her slight weight. Moving quietly on the snow proved impossible. Each step yielded a new sound announcing her approach to the being ahead of her.

The man didn't move when she trudged up behind him. She knew he was fully aware of her. Leia inhaled the frozen air deeply, preparing to speak. The figure's head tilted slightly in the hood of the parka as if listening, the steam of his breath curling in a thin wisp upwards. She noted the movement and found herself studying her gloved hands, hesitating. She just didn't have the energy for another heated row.

"What." His voice was flat, cold, dull. It wasn't a question. Just an acknowledgement of her presence and an expression of his irritation.

She didn't answer, choosing to settle down on the glacier's surface next to him, mirroring his pose. Leia glimpsed briefly at a late scout nearing the base's doors far on the plain beneath them. She tilted her head sideways and took a long look at Han Solo's strong profile in the chill night air. He had donned his own dark blue fur trimmed parka and Alliance-issued thermal boots before venturing topside. He hadn't bothered to put on his snowpants as she noticed the snug chocolate brown trousers with a narrow broken yellow stripe military decoration running down the side seams. He sat on his rump; feet planted, knees raised and elbows draped over them. His bare hands were half in his coat's sleeves, clasping each other loosely in front of his legs. Han stared off into the horizon before them, his expression neutral, unreadable, an emotionless card playing face.

She was mulling over an answer, when he reached underneath a knee and pulled out a bottle of dark amber liquid. His long fingers quickly unscrewed the cap, and he tilted the bottle to his mouth, wiping his lips afterwards on the sleeve of the parka.

Leia made a face, "You're drinking? "

Han eyed her curiously, after a half second's consideration he offered the bottle to her. Leia detected the powerful odor of a woodsy, herb spiced liquor emanating from the mouth. She received it, sniffed it, drew back wincing and studied the label. There was a cartoony image of a rakish pirate captain, complete with lace cuffs, an ancient tricorn hat and dueling pistols. The Aurebesh lettering was partially in Basic, the majority in Corellian, she guessed. The numbering, however, was clear - forty percent.

"Drinking" Leia reproached, shaking her head. "Before a mission." She snorted irritably and capped it, setting it down next to her, wiggling the bottle so it settled securely into a hollow in the snow, significantly out of his reach. She eyed him narrowly, and made a show of shaking her head as if reprimanding a child. "I should revoke your flight permissions." Leia threatened.

"Chewie is perfectly capable of flying the Falcon without me." Han growled. He leaned back, assessing whether he could reobtain the confiscated rum.

Leia shifted on her bottom, blocking his line of sight. She swatted his hand away when he made a half-hearted grab around her. "Stop! Grow up! " She snapped, her voice harsh. "You're going to Tethar in less than two hours for that trade run."

Han gave her a look of disdain, "I'm a big boy, your Worshipfullness."

" I sincerely doubt that" Leia smacked Han's reaching hand away again, this time with some actual force. "No! Back off, or I will pour it out in the snow."

Han lunged for the bottle, his long arms and lithe torso stretching around Leia's small form. His fingers brushed the rum, it teetered, fell over and began to roll to the glacier's precipice. They both dove for the bottle, Leia was closer though, and had no issues about roughly pushing away the pilot, who was easily twice her mass. Han backed off, realizing that horseplay near the glacier's edge was not necessarily the smartest idea. Noticing his reticence she boldly took the cap off the bottle and held the neck at an oblique angle. A few drops of the pungent liquid dribbled onto the snow, the alcohol melting into a depression until it diluted enough to freeze.

"Not playing fair there Highnessness. You're wasting my rum. At least have a drink if you are going to pour it somewhere."

"Solo, I am on duty, I have responsib-" Leia snapped at Han.

"No, you're not." Han interrupted her.

"-bilities" Leia attempted to continue, but Han blurted into the middle of her sentence again.

"No, you're not." He insisted.

Leia's focus floundered, "eh, What?"

"I know that you have been 'on shift' since oh-five hundred hours. Exactly one ration bar for a meal. You've had eight cups of my ship's galley's kaffe today. Three in the last two hours." He leaned in her direction, "I know you're not on duty, simply because you should have finished your shift shortly after noon. C'mon princess, you've got a right to be done for the day. Even princesses need a break." Han waved absently at the bottle.

Did he really keep tabs on her like that? The last thing she needed was to be babysat by this buffoon. Leia sighed, "I have responsibilities. Okay?" She added out of sheer frustration, "Maybe if you grew up, you'd realize that, Captain."

Han's face darkened with anger, "I grew up, Princess. Trust me, I grew up much earlier than most of you rebellion berks." There was an uncharacteristic hitch in his snarl. Leia felt slightly unbalanced as a result. She had to stop this before it developed into a full blown yelling match…again.

"I had Threepio deliver the flight data and mission orders to Chewbacca since you were not available. " She started officiously. She didn't know why she had started out so aloof, when all she intended was to draw him out of his hard shell.

"Guess you found me. Obviously you knew where I was." He said in a detached tone, looking a bit confused at her topic switch. His head tilted towards her, fixing her with dark glittering orbs. "Did Chewie tell you?"

Leia nodded, relieved that Han decided to play nice, a slight smile graced her lips. She knew the Wookiee had a lifedebt to the irascible captain. Chewbacca honored his obligation to protect the Corellian, yet if he thought it was in his captain's best interests, he would go against Solo's wishes. "I asked," She admitted.

"Huh, I'll have to tell him to get out of my hair with this. Damn Wookiee." Han groused.

"Out of _your_ hair?" She grinned at him, going for a joke. Han smirked at their reference to his shaggy co-pilot and his best friend, he leaned over and nudged her shoulder with his own. Leia punched his arm lightly. Han might drive her crazy; other than Luke though, there was no-one else she felt she might be able to confide in, as a friend. The trio of humans and the wookiee were bonded by their heroic adventures on the Death Star three years prior, both in the archives of history, and the warmth of what had become a foster family to each other. Their strong personalities often clashed, but together the quartet was nigh unstoppable on dangerous missions. They worked well and played well together. _When we're not arguing_. She thoughtfully amended.

Leia lowered the bottle, her threats dissipating with her anger. She sniffed it experimentally, then shot back a healthy sized swig. Han grinned, proud of his young friend. The herbed blend piqued on her tongue, smoothing out the harsh taste of the booze. Her insides felt vaguely warmer, she started to relax. Another, and she would need to get back to her bunk.

Han cleared his throat after an uncomfortable moment, "Anything I can do for you, your Worship? Coming up to slum with the alley dwellers?" His tone cracked on the harsh words. A surge of anger rushed out of her towards him for continuing the fight, and equal animosity towards herself for the urge to give in to the challenge. She resisted his goading.

 _Out with it Organa!_ She mentally chided herself. " I came-, I actually came-" She scrambled at his bemused expression, anticipating the lewd remark she saw behind his eyes, "to apologize." Leia inhaled deeply, "To apologize for my lack of professionalism in reaction to your insubordination" her professional tone wavering.

 _…WHAT?! Where did that come from? Idiotidiotidiot._ Leia silently chided herself.

Han snorted, reading her completely. Still chuckling cynically, he shifted to lean on his elbow, his back propped against the concave indentation of a wind hardened snowdrift. He made a point to intently study the crystal clear view of the arc of the star studded sweep of the night sky. Leia moved to retreat to the base hatch.

"There," his hand on Leia's arm stopped her. "There, right by that nebula cluster. Just a finger's width to the right, below that red giant." Han pointed at a spot in the galactic expanse above them.

Leia migrated closer to him, following his outstretched arm. He pointed to a clear, white unblinking star.

"What is 'there'?" she wondered, suspicious of a joke being cracked on her behalf.

"Alderaan," the pilot said simply, waving his hand casually at the thousand year old light of her decimated homeworld's sun.

Leia's eyes brimmed at his small token of peace, her heart bittersweet at the reminder. Not trusting her voice in that moment, she slipped off her glove and clasped his work roughened hand in thanks. She swallowed deeply and brought herself back to the present, the princess opened her mouth to say something when her attention was diverted by a flare of lavender in the sky emanating from the direction of Hoth's northern pole. It skirted across the stellar panorama, translucent and bright. She was suddenly wary, shrinking back to Han's shoulder. "Wha-"

"Oh, that's the aurora." Han took in the wavering ribbon of light. The glow reflected off of his eyes, his neck craned up at the sky, and she saw the appreciation for the spectacular lightshow on his sculptured features. _Gods, He's gorgeous._ Leia mused. Han continued, "Natural phenomenon on planets with a strong magnetosphere." She understood immediately, she had often glimpsed the beautiful dance of light on approach from high orbit, she had never thought to appreciate them planetside. The curtain shifted and shimmered, a deep blush of luminous scarlet shot through it and Leia gasped. Han threw her a flirtatious smirk, "it's caused by the collision of charged particles." Han must have caught her staring at him, because there was a flash of white teeth as a grin as wide as a nexu's spread across his lips. "I take it you like what you see, Princess?" He teased.

Her cheeks must have flushed as pink as the sky above them, because she felt a rush of heat through her core. Her normal reaction would be a searing retort designed to emasculate his mischievous ardor, but she was oddly comfortable. Leia met Han's eyes shyly and settled closer to his shoulder. Lost in the undulating waves of light gracing the star filled sky above her, she imagined she sensed a faint buzzing in the air around her. Leia took her hand back to swipe at some ice that had gathered on her lashes, she blew on her fingers to warm them up. Solo took her exposed hand in his, fingers wrapping around, encompassing her tiny fingers and slid their joined hands into the warm envelope of his coat pocket. Both their gazes turned heavenward.

Leia surprised herself by not pulling away.

Wordlessly they admired the show above in Hoth's atmosphere. The polar light streamed over the two unlikely friends in striations of multicolored glowing waves. Leia lost track of the minutes, she became acutely aware of the world around her. She settled into the ambient warmth and shelter of the maybe not so annoying, but seriously handsome Corellian smuggler beside her. A light wind blew off the glacier, dispersing the diffuse veil of moisture vapor from their exhalations, the fur trim of Han's parka hood tickled at her left temple. She felt at peace, yet utterly hyper-aware. The parts of her body making contact with the hard surface of the glacier seemed to feel the world's surface drawing her into a rich deep well of calming power. The surrounding air simmered around her with a living, thrumming energy. Leia's consciousness spread out as she took in the deep hues of the distant mountains, the crystalline white of the snowy surface of the vast area of the glacier spread before them. Behind her, Han's breathing matched in time to hers, and she felt the rise and fall of his broad chest at her shoulder, there was a distant, comforting sensation of his raw protective masculinity wrapping her presence like a warm cloak.

 _Safe._ Leia relaxed, drifting off into the swell of energy embracing her. She could swear there was an electric current communicating between her and Han's intertwined fingers. Snippets of memory swirled through her head, some she immediately recognized as her own, and many more were unfamiliar to the princess. She tried to distinguish them more clearly through her mind's eye, sorting what might be dream from reality, when there was an abrupt vortex of pain, fear and fire. She perceived herself being sucked into a hazy recollection of staring at the crudely wrapped feet of an extremely young child. Through the child's perspective, Leia was aware of the wet chill seeping up from the trash strewn street beneath. The winter night's sleet crusted in the child's hair, melting to drip into the neckline of the shivering youngster's threadbare wrap.

Leia physically shook in discomfort, but dove recklessly into the dream vision, empowered by the vibrant mystical energy encompassing her.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I don't own any of this. Disney lets me share the story with you as long as we don't get paid for it. So let's keep our voices hushed and enjoy the show.

Warning: UnBetaed. Yeah, all the mistakes are mine. I had to get this out before I mulled over editing it _yet again_. Umm. So...There is forced drug use, homelessness, abduction, child abuse and implied future rape/non-con in the later part of this chapter. The next chapter will have the much the same warning. Yes, this and the next chapter are dark. I will keep to the teen rating, so it's not explicit. The contents of this section describe a few of many risks people on the streets, in desperate situations and in conflict areas, in our real world have to face each day. You have been warned.

Remember- Comments make baby Wookiees smile

Timeline: Main story is Star Wars rebellion era. pre-ESB Hoth, This chapter section is a pre-Clone Wars Force vision.

* * *

 **Grasping Perception**

 **Chapter Three**

* * *

Princess Leia spiraled into the dream vision of the young child.

The child stared into the rippling reflection of himself in the dark surface of the puddle framed by melting slush. A dangerously thin, hollow cheeked human toddler stared back with luminous deep set eyes of umber bordered by olive green, bright golden flecks sparkled in the depths of the irises. His dark hair was filthy, matted, and the bangs hung at his jaw, the back section tumbling over his bony shoulders. He was dressed in clothes either far too small, or oversized pieces scavenged from refuse piles. His shoes were in tatters held together by strips of cloth wound around the foot. Similar strips of cloth served as crude wrappings for his hands.

She knew it was a 'him', a male. When the child's body shifted, she knew instinctively that this being of her dream vision was entirely male. He was incredibly young, surviving by a primal instinct, scavenging refuse for food, fighting alley vermin nearly his size and twice as mean, unwilling to give in to the overwhelming odds. Struggling against the massive obstacles stacked against him by fate and the antipathy of the society he lived in.

A dull nagging pain rippled through his gut. He clenched himself against the constant diarrhea that plagued him on his empty stomach. His fingernails were thin and peeled, his fingertips split with dehydration. Despite all of Leia's experiences under Vader and Tarkin and the challenges of the war effort following, these sensations of this being were wholly unfamiliar to her. The hunger that gnawed and turned the bowels to liquid. The aching chill that the child knew, _knew_ , would not be assuaged. He rose, the dizziness roiling over him like a state of drunkenness. He braced himself on the moist stone of the wall behind him and slid his body upward. The evening supper crowd were beginning to disperse. Food would be available in trash receptacles, patio tabletops and credits chips would be everywhere, pockets, tables, and bar tops. He eased out of the alley. His eyes slid around the streets picking out locations where other competing scavengers could emerge from. He slunk forward, his body sensitive to the bulk and bulges of the hips and thighs of the adults around him. A few blocks later in a better neighborhood, he spied a young couple at a sidewalk café dabbling the sides of their mouths with their napkins. He knelt down next to a planter his eyes locked on the woman's half consumed sandwich.

He rushed forward, focused on the partially consumed food, briefly noting the location of purses and wallets on the customers' tables. His mouth watered, it didn't matter what it tasted like, only that it would fill his belly. He approached within a few meters, using passersby as cover. The man the boy had spied, slid a fur shawl around the woman's shoulders and kissed her affectionately on the cheek. The woman gathered up her belongings and the couple left the restaurant, their arms wrapped around each other's waists.

The boy slipped between a Duros and a light post, pacing behind one couple and then followed another as they strolled past the café. Squeezing between the balusters of the café railing, and he paused between two planters with brittle yellowed flowers, eyeing the leftover food. Deciding it safe, he surged forward and clamped his hand around the woman's sandwich. The small child gulped down the food as quickly as he could, then he spied the glimmer of metallic rectangular ingots amidst the food pile. He knew these credits were important, they could be traded for food. He reached for the metal chits.

A hard shove landed him into a tangle of limbs and chair amongst the planters. One patron cursed as a larger youth pushed the child aside and snatched the credits, stuffing them into a belt pouch beneath her clothes. A dark blonde blur vaulted over the café's decorative fencing, pushed her way through the dispersing evening crowd and disappeared into the night. The boy was choking and gasping, a piece of bun lodged in his throat, he scrambled to untangle himself from the chairs, crawling out from underneath the mess of metal furniture to confront the concierge and waitress on his hands and knees.

"Get out of here you little vrelt!" The waitress howled. She whipped at him with a wet cleaning rag. The painful lick hit him square in the rear. He yelped and tore through the interior of the café, bouncing off of chairs, servers and patrons. Food was still paramount in his mind. Buns, pastries and easily grabbed items disappeared from table tops as he scampered past. He tripped and slid on his side underneath a table, a slice of nerf roast clenched between his teeth. A green skinned Rodian lady shrieked at him as he emerged from beneath her skirts, another heavier elderly Rodian began pummeling him with her handbag. He grabbed a long narrow loaf of bread off of a deli tray and deflected her blows, retreating between the planters. The violet eyed alien whacked at him one more time and was unintentionally disarmed when the strap of her handbag looped around the breadstick. The youth jerked the bread back in astonishment. The purse tore out of the lady's hand, soaring across the café to plunge in the café aquarium of fresh ormachek and gorgs. The radial jet splashed onto a nearby table soaking the patrons, tossing two ormachek onto the floor where they flopped helplessly.

A hush fell over the nearby patrons, servers and sidewalk crowd. There was a gasp from one patron and an outraged scream from his wife. Servers sprang into action, fussing and apologizing to the shocked customers. Chaos erupted in the far end of the restaurant from where the Rodian female and human child squared off. A pair of busboys attempted to recapture the escaped live food. The boy, rigid in amazement at the fluke event, found his gaze travelling to the gaping face of the elderly Rodian. A slow sideways smile crept across the child's face. He could hardly resist a self-satisfied shrug at the rodian. Handbag gone, she growled and resorted to squeezing her bulk between the planters to grabble with sucker tipped fingers at the urchin, cursing. The boy slunk through a gap in the fencing, leaving a faint grey smudge on the cream stonework and vanished into the gradually dissipating crowd.

Skipping along happily while shoveling the food in his mouth, the boy travelled along a quiet side street, humming contentedly. The long bread stick had made good barter for a few dry hours and a heel of soup in a shared stairwell. Two of the honey slathered pastries were exchanged for a blanket he had traded away three nights prior. No credits, but it had been a good night. The local Corsec police had shown up a moments after his hasty departure from the restaurant. The apathetic officers had duly taken their notes, promising to sweep the local streets clear of vermin. He'd observed from the edge of a nearby rooftop as the police hassled the scruffier locals; uprooting the old veteran and his collection of treasure he was hawking, pushing Ria and her shivering children out of the public transit kiosk. They worked the ground level block around the café, displacing the undesirables, the unkempt, the unseen.

The roar of a departing starship distracted the child. He was approaching the perimeter of one of the many ports throughout the city. He loved the cacophony of engines, repulsors and repair crews mixed with the heady smell of grease, sweat and coolant. He became less aware of his surroundings as he focused on the glow of a corvette's sublight engine array as it streaked into the dawn. There was a flicker of awareness of something behind him, a faint rustle of fabric, and the piercing smell of something medicinal.

A rough callused hand jammed a foul smelling rag into his mouth and he was hauled backwards, gagging. The boy kicked wildly, twisting and writhing in his captors' grip. His arms were slick with the moisture from that night's snowfall. He worked his arm free, and dragged the rag from his mouth, gasping. The large brute's hairy forearm got too close as he pinned the boy's limb to his side, attempting regain control of the squirming youngster. The child bit down, hard. There was a yell and then a vicious backhand across his face, and the boy reeled, seeing stars. The iron grip held him upright as the man pulled back for another blow.

"Sling, don't mess his pretty face up too bad. They pay more if the wee ones don't look too beat up." admonished a rail-thin woman in her forties. Her blonde hair was messily styled in an ostentatious updo, heavy makeup gave her a hollowed menacing look. A nearly indecent bosom spilled over a worn leather corset and the cuffs of her pants and shirt sleeves were fraying. She cupped the flailing child's bony chin, assessing him like a piece of meat. Her nails dug into his jawbone as she turned his head side to side. She opened his mouth, counting teeth, looking at the angle of his jaw, the deep set, dark glittering eyes. "Boys this pretty and unwanted are hard to find." Her finger tugged at the boy's tunic noting the margin of swarthy skin versus the pallor beneath the rags, the scuttle of arthropods in his mop of hair. The child wriggled, covering himself.

"We'll need to clean him up." The gaunt woman unclipped a comlink from her belt, barking into it, "Got one." She nodded to another being behind the brute that held the boy. The medicinal smell strengthened, and the boy kicked wildly. The woman accepted a cylinder from the being and caught the boy's ankle, she took a half step back, straightening his leg to jab the hypo into his thigh. When she released him he snarled, bucking, squirming and twisting futilely in the man's grip. The terror was thick in his throat. As the anesthetic took effect, his struggles decreased to sporadic twitches, vision narrowing to a fuzzy pinhole.

How much time would pass he never knew, it was hard to tell. The dawn had been approaching when he was abducted. They had poured his spindly form into the back of a speeder, the orange rays of the rising sun filtering through the cloth they had draped over his twitching body. The speeder ride was brief, staying within the inner city. He glimpsed a gaudy red peeling building façade as the big brute hauled him out of the speeder in broad daylight, his slight form easily mistaken for a roll in the cloth. It went dark again for a time, voices were muffled, unintelligible, after a time he drifted off into effects of the hypo's drugs, finding a small measure of comfort in finally being warm.

The smack of his body against the cold ceramic made for an abrupt awakening. There was sensation in his limbs again, it felt as though he had regained some motor control. Two pairs of hands pulled at his tunic raising his head enough to see dingy white tile. Mold and scum accumulated in the corners of the tiled cubicle, there was one entry with a raised tile lip, a spout emerged from a pipe the ceiling, the knob in the upper wall appeared to be some sort of control, and a rusting drain marked the base of a slope of the floor. The pale yellow lighting flickered and buzzed just beyond the confines of the stall. The boy tested his limbs and found enough control to draw himself back into the corner, away from the spigot and the two burry shadows in the entry. His harsh breathing echoed around him.

"What's he like not sedated" said a voice made of black velvet, echoing through the room.

"Wild, uncontrollable, gotta be whip smart for being on the street that young. Took a bite out of poor ol'Sling." The madam's hard drawl listed. " Not a being suited for general slavery."

The madam from the alleyway stepped into focus, she unwrapped a coin-sized biscuit and tossed it at the boy's feet. It broke in twain upon landing. The boy scrambled to retrieve the halves with fumbling fingers, including picking at a few crumbs. After sniffing it, he shoved the whole mess into his mouth. It was chocolate, sweet but with an acrid after-taste. He briefly considered spitting it out.

"Everyone's a slave, Madam" declared the man from the doorway, enunciation crisp, the tone aristocratic.

"Aye, ya got that right." Agreed Madam, " Me, you." She eyed him critically, "I bet you are a slave to more secrets than I will ever be." She remarked, indicating the stall. "Watch this," She beckoned. The man stepped over to the stall, peering over the door at the child.

Remaining partially sedated, the boy stared in bewilderment as tiny specks began dropping from his hair. Gut cramping, he turned onto his knees on the cold tile, and watched in horror as a rain of dying arthropods fell from his body. A least three varieties of crawlies writhed, kicking their many legs on the tile beneath him as they perished. He gagged in revulsion.

"Oh, oh! Let's get you washed up then." Madam clucked. She reached over the door, swiping at the knobs. A wet gurgle sounded from within the walls and icy water began shooting at the boy from the spigot, rinsing the dead bugs into the corroded drain. Putting up his hands unsteadily, body not fully cooperating, he attempted to block the cleansing spray, then began to shriek.

Velvet voice made a disgusted sound, pacing away from the stall.

"I did not desire to see that." He flapped his hand, dispelling what he'd witnessed. The child's cries began to abate as the water warmed up. A line of grey-brown water trickled into the drain from beneath him. The madam tossed in a bar of soap. Shrinking back, the lad eyed it, suspicious, clutching his knees to his chest.

"Oh for the love of…." Madam started. She swung around the doorframe and called into the hall beyond the shower room. A moment later, two wan looking young women entered. They were instructed to wash the youngster quickly as he was emerging from his drugged state earlier than expected. The madam soothed her customer, tapping her claw-like nails on the stall's outer wall.

"You wanted to see if we clean them up. We do. We're not those Hutt-spawn from the north side, I have standards. The girls will give him another anti-pest scrub, trim his nails and hair. He'll be ready for you by tomorrow night." She promised. "Do you need him sedated again?"

Velvet voice growled, " Did you not mention he's uncontrollable? Of course, I want him chemically restrained, but conscious"

"Well, some customers like a bit of a fight." The madam mused.

"I'm already contributing enough to this… event for my guests, I don't need the risk. " The aristocratic voiced man snapped. The slim shadow reached into a coat pocket, counting out high value credit chits. He pushed them into the madam's hand. "Do you offer to take care of disposal?"

"We can. I'll give you Sling's comm code. It'll be half again for the disposal."

The child was ultimately dressed in mismatched, undersized clean smelling clothes. His feet remained bare, but he was indoors, thankfully the warmth was everywhere. He spent the next night and day in a near stupor. Each time that he started to emerge, they stuck him with another hypo-shot, sending his brain spinning once more. The anti-pest treatment cleaned out his bowels, as well as the crop of parasites on his body. Nails were trimmed, the girls opted to leave his sun-bleached, light brown hair long, only cutting back the most troublesome locks. He had a vague recollection of feeling this cleanliness before, it was associated with a raven haired woman, her emerald eyes sparkling with love. Unlike his current surrounding, she had once made him feel safe, warm, cared for. He clung to her familiar comforting image in his fogged brain, and she radiated a terrible sadness. She looked down at the dreaming toddler clutching her skirts, gently disengaging his hand, a glowing blue halo radiated around her. The shimmering woman of his memory gave him the gift of his name and whispered in a desperate tone.

" _Han, RUN!"_


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I don't own any of this. Disney lets me peep in on Han and Leia and gosh, whaddayah know, I blushed. ALOT. Disney lets me share the story with you as long as we don't get paid for it. So let's keep our voices hushed and enjoy the show.

I would like to thank **erindarroch** and **justinegraham** for their eternal patience, inspiration and guidance by being my mentors as I foray into the incredible world of fanfic. ❤ Seriously luv and admire those gals… Read their stuff, it's amazing.

Warning: There is implied child abuse and rape/non-con in this chapter. Mentions of torture, violence, imprisonment, alcohol, yadda yadda. Yup, you betchya, it's angsty. Also, UnBetaed

Remember- Comments make baby Wookiees smile

Timeline: This first section is a pre-Clone Wars Force vision. Main story is Star Wars rebellion era. pre-ESB Hoth.

* * *

 **Grasping Perception**

 **Chapter Four**

* * *

The first thing the young child saw when he opened his eyes was an arachnid crawling across the broken skin of his knuckles a few centimetres away. Mind hazed with pain, he watched dully as the iridescent insect skittered up his index finger, paused at the gap by the knuckle and scurried out of sight, tickling over the back of his hand. The ground cradling him was soft, only a couple sharp points jabbing him in isolated spots. Tall branching shadows loomed over him in the moonlight, he felt a warmth from the softness beneath his torso that contrasted with the numbing chill that were his exposed toes. He was wet, freezing, yet not as cold as he expected to be. The surrounding landscape was confusing, nearly alien in aspect as compared to the cold worked stone of the city. He was no longer in the alleys, they were nothing like this. Not green not lush, not rich with the thick scent of humus, it was- a forest?

Han realized he was covered in leaves and... Dirt? The boy started painfully, sharp pangs shooting through his torso, as he came the conclusion as to where he was and struggled upright. It had to be one of the patches of green just outside of Coronet, he concluded. He was half buried in a loose patch of soil and autumn leaves. The rotting vegetation emitting an ambient warmth from its decay that had so far saved the abandoned youngster from the final stages of hypothermia.

"Gaahhh," he gasped. Tears streaked down through the crusted blood and filth on his face. Han sank down on his forearms. His feverish forehead cooling at the contact of the frost crusting the top of the leaf litter.

Attempting to move further, every joint seared and his head felt fuzzy and thick. His left arm lit up, white hot when he flexed, muscles twitched uselessly. There was a terrible, awful pain in his entire torso, and he wasn't wearing most of his clothes. But they were there, buried beside him and underneath. Discarded like the trash. Just like him …again.

He suppressed a ensuing wail into a low keening wheeze.

Blinking back the tears, Han attempted to recall the past few hours. From the clear point of when he had been chased down and nabbed by the beings in the street, he could remember the brothel and another speeder ride the next day. Every time he tried to make a break for it, he'd been caught and jabbed with a syringe. He recalled the swirling consciousness, the half-glimpsed memories of being carried into a plush room with several beings who stared at him hungrily. They had been garbed in expensive tailored clothes and costumes, the room around had been lush, opulent. They'd pawed at him and passed him around like meat. Each sample of the boy becoming rougher, until the viciousness included being held down while being beaten senseless. There were glimpses of things after, his near infant mind had no hope of understanding at the present; only that they were confusing, terrifying, hurt him physically and just felt incredibly, terribly _wrong_.

As his awareness drifted on the ache and chill, the boy dreamed of an angel floating amongst the trees. As she came into focus he realized it was only a pale dark-haired girl in a simple flowing green dress, her silhouette backlit by the headlights of a speeder. She was addressing a laconic sandy haired teen. She approached and leaned in close, eyes reminding the urchin of the colors of the mid-day sky. Her expression was shock, melding to concerned resolve. She called back to her companion in the landspeeder parked at the edge of the brush, her voice breathy, soft, yet urgent.

"Cris!, He's the same age as my little brother."

"Who cares? He's just trouble for us. Nobody cares about these gutter rats. Let's find a quieter spot." complained a nasal sounding male.

"He needs to get to a medical facility." The girl gritted, resolute. Her warm slender fingers flitted across Han's chest, moving the tattered remnants of his tunic around him.

"No! That will be a buncha attention on us and our evening will be ruined." Argued the teenaged youth.

"It's already ruined Cris. He needs our help. Oh gods, he's bleeding." The girl's hand shot into her mouth in shock, "Oh, what have they done to you. Oh little pittin -" Her eyes filled with tears of compassion.

"It's gonna cost a fortune, Babe. Ya can't just drop off some half dead street kid and expect them not to question you or charge you for wasting their time with someone else's problem." Her boyfriend whinged. He studied the surface of his fingernails, feigning indifference.

"Cris, if you don't," She rose, fists balled at her hips. She twisted to affix Cris with a righteous glare and accusatory finger. "I will comm my father, and he will know about the boy I was out with tonight!"

"Okay, okay. Geez. Just wrap him up in the blanket I brought, and make sure he doesn't get the seats dirty." Grouched the teen, relenting. "This is what I get for dating a bleeding-heart senator's niece…"

The injured, discarded child was bundled into a quilt, curled up around the bundle of the remainder of his rags. Every nerve shot of his through with pain. When the teen couple placed him in the speeder, he uttered a weakened cry. The girl soothed the child, reaching back over the seat to stroke her fingers feather-light over his cheek, ignoring the protests of her boyfriend. _He's got vermin… Dump him in an alleyway and be done with it._

An agonizing lifetime passed in the speeder, bouncing and turning, until they arrived at a brightly lit facility. He was hauled out, bundled onto a stretcher, unmoving, the air rasping in his lungs. The next lifetime of moments consisted of being prodded and examined. The skull-like visage of a med-droid hovered into view. It spoke to a Twi'lek intern, who pulled a selection of objects from a tray.

"Unnamed male pediatric patient's status is critical. Immediate Bacta immersion recommended. Malnourished patient has numerous bone fractures, lacerations to-"

As the droid droned mechanically, the Twi'lek moved to the other side of the gurney. Smiling compassionately, her species' head's tentacle-like lekku brushed his shoulder, she lifted the boy's limp unbroken arm, inserting an intravenous line. The now familiar medicinal smell pierced the air in the room as she did so. Struggling to rise, the panicked boy bucked on the bed. A firm hand pushed him down, strapping his torso to the gurney. The intern's tone was comforting.

"Go to sleep, little wounded alley pittin. You've got some new friends in high places."

A cool liquid rush shot up Han's arm, the droid's voice faded to a hum, and the Twi'lek's lavender features merged with the bright illumination of the room, when suddenly the world collapsed into a pinpoint of black.

He had an agony-filled dream, seeming to last an eternity. Often the pain was distant, throbbing, other times it pierced, but it always in was in the same places. Where he had been beaten, wounded, _hurt._ The hunger remained, gnawing at him, his most recent morsel of food days past. Every time the child came to, the setting was brilliant white, sterile and unfamiliar. At one point two droids and three beings with white masks crowded around his helpless form. There were intermittent snatches of a conversation as he futilely battered at the anesthetic haze.

"Discovered him…Laser scalpel…-oronet forest…Suction please…Expensive treatm-…Gutter rat …Hemorrhaging! …Senator Iblis's niece…Cauterize…Orphanage….Bacta suture…Third one… "

As the glare of lights and hum of conversation washed away in a gentle eroding current of anesthetic drugs, he felt himself drift away into the chill darkness.

* * *

On the frozen surface of a glacial cliff's overhang, a pair of beings nestled together for mutual comfort and warmth. Two unlikely friends in an uncharacteristic close moment, absorbing the raw splendor of Hoth's auroral lightshow in the panorama above the shadowed peaks that cradled the icefield. One half of the pair - Han Solo - lounged, eyes narrowed, the rum having dulled his senses and warmed his chest, with another comforting warmth burrowed in at his right hip. The smuggler had sleepily emerged from an unwelcome deluge of memories, likely brought on by the creeping chill numbing his feet, thighs, cheeks and nose.

Usually he kept his earliest recollections deeply buried. It was only a fathomless well of rejection, pain and anger. Sometimes it emerged in a nightmare. Occasionally it bubbled up at reminders in amoral cesspools like Nar Shadda or Jabba's palace. In the past, before his association with the Rebels, Han often found himself in those places, out of desperation, a need for a job, for money, for companionship, for food, for shelter. The Corellian pilot was always being sucked back into yet another distorted mirror of his origins, no matter how often he tried to claw his way out of it. He found himself, often cold and hungry back then, though now with a two and half meter Wookiee conscience trailing behind him, and now shivering on this iceball Hoth with the lost cause of the Rebellion.

After a botched passenger run from the planets Tatooine to Alderaan went sour almost three years prior, the smuggler was dragged into a half-assed rescue attempt of a snarky pint-sized teenaged princess. The girl had just been captured, no doubt tortured and had her home destroyed by the battle station that she was incarcerated on, Han would learn later. But the little spitfire took charge of her own rescue, snapping at the men, piloting the Falcon through a TIE fighter attack, and then delivering the plans to destroy the most fearsome weapon ever built. And that wee slip of a girl had inspired in Han a rare selfless act, hold full of his reward money from the princess and on his way to settle his outstanding debt to Jabba, Han had felt a rare, grinding emotion; _guilt_ churned at his gut. The fleeting image of that wide-eyed blonde farm kid Luke and the deceptively fragile-looking Princess Leia had passed in his vision each time he flipped another switch to prepare his exit from the Rebel base on Yavin IV. When Chewie gargled at Han something about it being a shame that the kids had stayed behind, Han had swallowed a curse, cut the hyperdrive countdown and veered around just in time. He'd saved the farm kid from a trio of TIEs on his X-wing's tail, and the kid took an impossible shot, wiping out the Empire's greatest weapon.

He felt a twitch at his right side and looked down. The girl had been forged into a young woman, her features hardened by years of war, loss and the genocide of her people and world. Leia's sculpted brow was often furrowed by concentration or worry. She habitually worked herself to the point of near-collapse. No-one had the courage to suggest she might need some rest, take a break once in awhile. She was a Princess after all, a member of the high command in the Alliance, and now at the age of twenty-two, the commander of the Rebel's secret base here on Hoth. Leia, surrounded by the airs of nobility, exuding an aura of command, kept at a distance by the awe of her peers and subordinates; the young woman had few friends. She was as famous a face as the Rebellion had, yet it was this fame that kept most beings who knew her at bay. It became her durasteel armor, encasing her so rigidly, that she became as crystalline as ice. Crystal white, pure, beautiful, brittle – Cold.

And not a whit of that dissuaded Han Solo.

To the Corellian smuggler, Leia was all those things. But cold? Never. That armor shielded a fiery heart, the flame of the rebellion, and more, Han knew. Often, he'd catch her staring at him out of the corner of his eye. The Princess would bite her bottom lip, clutching her datapad protectively to her slight chest, her bright kaffe-brown eyes both confused and hungry. That is, until he turned, acknowledging her, then the Princess's armor clinked back in place.

 _Yet…_ Han scrubbed at his jaw thoughtfully, blowing on his hand to dispel the pins and needles of the cold.

Leia would be the first to meet him at the ramp of his ship. Not with a kind word for him. Not quite. Asking how the mission had been, she would touch his arm, her pale fingers cool, contrasting against the heat of the taut bronze muscle of his forearm. As if speaking in code she would step in close, her perfume, light, floral, heady on the sub-zero air of the hangar, asking him polite, pointless questions. _Was the contact there? How was the flight? Any news of -_. And on and on. A pre-debriefing that really meant, _Are you okay? Were you in any danger?_ Han still awaited for what he suspected was her real question, what he anticipated would be her request one day. _Will you stay? – For me?_ Or hope against hopes, _Han, I need you_.

The Rebellion's hired smuggler too felt drawn to Leia's orbit, relishing when he could extract any, _any_ reaction at all from the haughty noble. Han sought to disarm her with humor. Often, he strove for a smile or a laugh, usually getting an amused eye roll as a reward, an unfamiliar thrill tugged at his chest as she did. If he misjudged, or if he let her get to him first, their subsequent argument would echo through the base's halls. Leia so easily lost it around him. Moreso if her personnel happened to be present. The push and pull of their drama made for wild gossip and betting pools among the staff. _Audience be damned_. It was a rare occasion when both of them let guard down at the same time. Then, a spark, a flare of attraction, a stare held too long, a wandering inquisitive touch. Han rarely resisted his urges, but Leia suppressed, no… _punished_ herself for the feelings that tempted her. Drawing back as if burned, or sharply deflecting his hand with a wounded look, snapping at him, at herself.

"Damn," Han muttered, shivering. He could barely pull himself out of his thoughts of Leia these days. If he had been more pragmatic on Yavin and just paid off his debts to Jabba, he would not have to endure suffering through this ridiculous yearning and potential heartbreak.

 _Heartbreak?_

 _Yeah_. Certainly, if Han left now, perhaps only he would be… But knowing how Leia really felt about him, she would…

"Aargh," Han scrubbed at his face in frustration, pinching his brow. Any happy future for him, he envisioned involved being _with_ her. Imagined scenarios that involved commitments that he would have scoffed at only a few years before. The other lifepaths without her appearing more and more desolate, pointless, - lonely. Ah, if only they didn't drive each other nuts!

Sometimes though… Han grinned, decidedly impressed with himself at the recent turn of events, gently squeezed the slim hand sheltering with his in his pocket. Steeling himself, he dared to lean down to the dozing Princess.

"Ah someday, you might give in Princess. I know _I_ did the day I met you." He whispered. When she didn't stir, Han took a deep breath, hesitated, then ever so tenderly his lips brushed her temple. He wondered at not his boldness for violating her space, but at the fact he felt guilty for it. He resolved to not push those boundaries again until she was aware. _Hell, she might even reciprocate_ , he mused.

Han yawned, shifting on his rear to dispel an ache in his spine. Gently disentangling his fingers from Leia's, he extracted his hand from his pocket. Reaching behind his head through the collar of his parka, he pushed at a crick at the base of his neck. The star-pilot's face angled skyward, absorbing the change of the pattern of the shifting auroral light. Brilliant lurid red streaks dueled with azure lances. Han swallowed somewhat uncomfortably at the clashing forces of the geomagnetic phenomena, not entirely sure why.

"No," Leia's brow furrowed, she shuddered, seemed to hold her breath and then whispered, "Noh, uhl nhar!"

Han retreated from Leia, disengaging from their near-embrace, allowing her space. Kicking her white boots, Leia whispered the Corellian phrase repeatedly. _No. No, the darkness!_ She pushed at Han's hip, dislodging herself from the resting place at his side. Quickly realizing that the Princess was suffering another one of her violent nightmares, Han retreated from her slight form as she struggled against the demons that had tormented her since her imprisonment and torture by the Empire. Leia's cries became more desperate, further incoherent. Pleading in a half dozen languages, she cursed at the darkness, the cold, the pain. As her palm left Han's arm, she calmed for a half moment, then the petite woman arched her body and gave the big Corellian a hard shove. She slid a few inches back on the snow, turning onto her side in a semi fetal curl. Han, who easily was twice the princess's mass, was relocated into the cusp of the snowdrift that supported the pair. Leia gasped and clawed at the air, the ice, and him. It was at that point Han noticed her eyes were wide open, yet sightless, terrified, consumed.

"Leia?" Han's concerned baritone was a little higher than he'd regularly affect. Her episode appeared to be more severe than the previous incidents he had witnessed in the last three years, either aboard the Falcon, on assignment or on base. She tore at his hand, arm and side, pushing herself away. In his peripheral vision, Han's sight caught the crisp edge of the precipice, a mere meter away from Leia's rear. Urgently now, he reached for her, trying to dodge her erratic flailing. " Leia!" The Princess's legs kicked savagely at some unseen foe in her nightmare, the edge of her foot jostled the rum bottle they had been imbibing, sending it careening across the ice behind Han.

Han rose to kneel on one knee, the other foot planted firmly in the snow at the Princess's side. Leia was so close to the edge now. Her round, beautiful features contorted, painted in stark hues of crimson by the magnetic light storm overhead. Han's heart sat in his throat. All because she had to take pity on him after he'd sought solace in a bottle after yet another argument. He'd let her sample his rum, which must have finally made Leia succumb to exhaustion. _Solo, you idiot. A traumatized war orphan that weighs less than fifty kilos, and you fed her spiced booze?_ Han silently berated himself. This was a nightmare she did not appear to be waking from easily any time soon.

Timing his next move versus Leia's terror induced struggles, Han's heart crept into his throat, he narrowed his eyes, concentrating. Judging at what he thought was an opening, he made a grab for her shoulder and belt to haul her away from the drop behind her. She slipped away from the shoulder grab but his long fingers caught the fabric near the front buckle of her white snowsuit's belt.

"Godsdammit Princess, wake up!" Han bellowed now, a sickening sense of dread creeping up on him. He cursed himself for leaving his comm at the ship in the hangar far below. _Might need a hand here_.

Leia yelped, a high-pitched rasp that put a shiver of sympathy down Han's spine. The Princess's brown eyes were wide open, yet they held no recognition. As he tugged to pull her out of danger, Leia's right leg swung out unexpectedly and the thick padded front of her boot slammed against Han's temple, and the Corellian pilot's world lit up into a million brilliant dancing starbursts.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: I don't own any of this. Disney lets me peep in on Han and Leia and gosh, whaddayah know, I blushed. ALOT. Disney lets me share the story with you as long as we don't get paid for it. So let's keep our voices hushed and enjoy the show.

Warning: There is implied rape/non-con, swarming in this chapter. It is not graphic, but does contains triggers. There is also a fair bit of blood and violence, a bit beyond what might be present in the canon.

Remember- Comments make baby Wookiees smile

I don't make excuses for a tardy fanfic chapter, but yes - This one is late (sorry!). It has changed quite a bit in tone, especially since Carrie Fisher's passing. It took me some time to work up the strength to look at it after that, and I'm glad I waited. It's much kinder and less dark than it was before the holidays. Though I should warn you, it heads into some pretty nasty territory. Which is, as before, based on some real world difficulties that affect unfortunate members of humanity across our globe.

Timeline: Core story is Star Wars rebellion era. pre-ESB Hoth. Force visions in this chapter run from post-Republic era to A New Hope.

* * *

 **Grasping Perception**

 **Chapter Five**

* * *

As the nightmare (dreams, visions, memories?) faded into a pinpoint in the black, soundless void; Princess Leia's consciousness seemed to float in zero gravity. What precious few sensations she detected were muted, muffled, and chilled her. The darkness she had fought and railed against, pressed in on her, enveloping her in its tendrils, nearly suffocating her.

A tiny red glow appeared before her eyes. Small, unassuming and steady, she was inexorably drawn toward it. She no longer struggled, choosing to ride the crest of the wave that carried her subdued form to the light. It expanded until it seemed to hover directly before her eyes. Not bright at all, it was the only source of illumination in her unconscious purgatory. When she knew she was within touching distance, it proceeded to pulse with the steady rhythm of a slowed heartbeat, brightening and dimming. Above it was the barely perceptible glow of a similar sized rectangular green diode. The familiar placement and shape sent a shiver of dread through her.

She knew those lights – knew the chromed control plastron – recognized the surrounding buttons and inputs. Her breathing and anger quickened as she recognized the black plasteel breastplate that lay behind the square electronic panel. Emerging from one nightmare into another, she gathered that furious energy that drove her, into scowling up – way up – at the skull-like masked visage.

 _No–,_

Lips pulled back into a smiling grimace that a barely tolerant parent would concede a naughty child, she addressed the cybernetic horror before her.

"I am a member of the Imperial senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan," she stared boldly into the obsidian lenses, defiant, resolute.

"You are a part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take her away!" the dark lord snarled at the diminutive senator standing defiantly before him.

Princess Leia's lips curled back in an aborted attempt at a retort. Darth Vader's black gloved finger stabbed the air between them, his other arm shot out, indicating the direction the Stormtroopers were to lead her. One soldier at the back of group shoved her roughly from behind, and the one at her right heel leaned in close with a lewd suggestion. Leia just shook her head at them as they marched down the corridor of Leia's diplomatically assigned vessel to the breach in the docking hatch the Imperials had stormed through when they had taken her ship.

Shivering, Leia felt the slight drop in temperature as they marched into the hangar, it was miniscule, but enough to send a tremor through her. A silken senatorial robe of a semi translucent white fell gracefully over her shoulders. It was demure, yet tantalized with the sheer fabric hinting at the pale pink flesh of the young woman beneath. From the neck, a thin white hood hung down the back. It was a fashion statement on Coruscant; here it was a flimsy shift amongst the stiff uniforms, plasteel armor and durasteel weapons – offering no protection, no warmth, and no rank. The looming bulk of the encompassing mile long warship pressed in on her. The Princess squared her shoulders and straightened her back as much as possible despite her wrists being bound in front of her. Leia could feel the eyes of the Imperials around her, their probing, judging gazes. She suppressed a shiver, perhaps only one female officer passed her line of sight. Another chill crept up her spine as she passed by a squad of troopers that were forming up, one slow taunting whistle trailing her.

They marched her from level to level, passing through hectic intersections, along bustling corridors wide enough to fly her captured ship through. Everywhere she felt the burn of curious eyes following her. The troopers walked her into common recreational areas, past the barracks before halting before a set of wide doors. The walk seemed unnecessary, it was as if she was being paraded through heavily trafficked areas of the ship. _Perp walk_ , she thought. One trooper emerged to stop short in front of the group that held Leia. His helmet was under his arm and he looked Leia up and down. Beyond, was the rattle and clatter of a busy mess hall. A steady hum of male voices filtered from behind the entrance.

"He's coming, wants first cut, plus a percentage of the first takers." The trooper from the mess informed Leia's guard detail. She had no idea what he meant. Percentage? Of what? The doors slid open again, revealing the wiry form of a middle aged mustachioed Imperial officer. On his shoulder badge she recognized the insignia for the Imperial corrections division brig warden. The officer grabbed her roughly by the chin, Leia jerked her head back out of his bruising grip, hissing.

"Let go."

"This really her?" The warden officer leaned in, the smell of kaffe and a rancid cologne permeating the air. The princess challenged him directly with an icy glare. The warden officer's laughter rasped at her ear, slithering closer, he inhaled deep through his nostrils. "Mmmm. Yes, expensive… Alderaanii twilight rose," not touching her with his lips, but only a hair's breadth away, he whispered in a lascivious hiss, "We've never had a _princess_ before, never a lady so fine, barely ripe enough to eat." Leia struggled to retreat from the officer, the stormtroopers closed in with their armored torsos, caging her. She merely raised her chin higher, shrugging at the restraining hands on her shoulders.

"I am an elected member of the Imperial senate and have been detained on false charges. The diplom– " she gasped when her waist and biceps were seized by armored gloves. The warden officer loomed over her, Leia retreated, bumping her head on a pair of white chest plastrons. The smell of sweat and want surrounded her. Heart racing, she became faint, nauseous, _terrified_. She swallowed a viscous ball of fear in her throat. This was not something the teenaged senator from Alderaan was prepared for. Leia was subliminally aware of such abuses but had always held fast to the ideal that her diplomatic status would protect her and that the Emperor's soldiers were above such things.

She was beginning to sense she had been sorely mistaken.

He laughed loud and low. Stepping back, the officer raised his arm and motioned grandly. "Bring her in," quietly again, he sneered, " your Highness, I will enjoy seeing what you fetch on the first round."

"You can't do this," Leia protested. The door slid open and she was dragged through it. Unsuccessfully attempting to break free, she pushed at the troopers surrounding her. They sniggered behind their masks, forcing her ahead in to the mess.

A hush fell over the hall at her entry. Nothing was said initially, she was merely marched in, struggling and spitting threats. Her voice died in her throat when hundreds of eyes swiveled in her direction. Leia froze, terrified, her eyes enormous. A lengthy hush was followed by a mass shuffling of chairs and tables. A cluster of various ranks of personnel formed a few metres away in a circle around her. Murmured comments brought rushes of foreboding, dark promises stabbed at her. Leia centered herself, summoning an inner strength, she shut her eyes, searching for some light amidst the growing hunger and darkness surrounding her. She was jerked out of her focus when a rough set of hands lifted her struggling form to stand on a table. Around her were catcalls and whistles. And yet…

Across the mess hall she saw them. Middle-aged troopers, remarkably similar, were cleaning up and vacating the hall, their expressions a strained attempt at neutrality. _Clones_ , Leia realized. The baser human urges were engineered out of them, though not _some_ emotions evidently. She noted that the overwhelming majority of the Imperials present chose not to participate directly in the mistreatment of the prisoner. Most were pointedly removing themselves from the situation.

A steel featured female trooper made brief eye contact with Leia. The princess pleaded with the other young woman silently. The female stormtrooper's answer was a sympathetic look of angry guilt, followed by her rising, shoving her helmet over her shaven head and vacating the mess. As she left, a small handful of what Leia realized were other female troopers followed her out. Outnumbered and fuming, their mutual outrage was palpable.

Most of the mess hall's occupants either evacuated the area, or stood back, mutely observing. Leia's eyes closed momentarily as she was held upright and a raucous bidding began. As the price climbed, hands would reach out clawing for her. She struggled at first, kicking at paws that groped her ankles. A near riot started after she hit home, the vibration of the glancing contact enough to make the front arch of her foot numb. Encouraged, she snarled in a fury. Reaching deep within her, she summoned forth an inner strength, lashing out with the clenched pair of her bound fists. The wrenching crack of the broken jaw of the trooper on her right sent an abrupt hush through the mob. The stormtrooper stumbled, toppling off the table and into the clumsy arms of his comrades.

Bidding forgotten, a howl of outrage sounded from behind her and she was dragged down. Bruising hands tugged at her small frame, she spat and kicked at her foes, yelling back at them in rage. Every ounce of her strength went into her struggle, the slightest man was nearly twice her mass, and yet she managed to hold them off for long frenzied moments. Her own visceral terror giving her angry fire fuel.

It was when they had pinned her feet and shoulders, that she felt that well of strength leave her. Siphoned away from her in a rush, the pain in her beaten body now burned through her. Leia's head fell to the side, her mind became distant to the abuse and she locked eyes with an attacker. The moment extended and froze, and the man's voracious eyes became confused. He gasped, piggish nose turned up as he struggled for breath. He wheezed and his eyes rolled back, blood streaming from the edges. The trooper rose and twitched, suspended in mid-air by some invisible hand. He gurgled, reaching out to Leia, pleading. The surrounding soldiers who had been held in place by shock or perhaps the same force that suspended the choking man, began to clear away from him. In the distance, a steady mechanical rasp echoed forebodingly in the stone silence of the hall.

Rolling onto her hip, Leia pushed herself up from prone position, sniffling. Her flesh burned and her insides had turned to lava. Despite her agony, her attention turned to that awful breathing noise. She pushed back the mess of her hair and rearranged the cloth of her gown carefully. She dragged her body to the edge of the table, wiping at her tears and mouth with the back of her hand. Beyond the gathered soldiers came the sound of heavy footfalls, steady and strident.

In front of her, the crowd of soldiers parted smoothly to reveal the imposing silhouette of Darth Vader. The menacing black figure towered over the tallest trooper, he steadily strode toward Leia, halting a couple of meters short of where she crouched on the table. Thumbs inserted in his belt, his expressionless mask scanned the group of assaulters, all the while his mechanical breathing steady. He said nothing, occasionally halting his gaze to pause on an individual, his head cocking as if listening. Then he turned to Leia, his breathing hitching, before he began.

"Your Highness," his voice, devoid of sympathy or apology _–_ of anything that could be construed as emotion really. Thus, Leia was not prepared for happened next.

Vader's right hand rose and his fingers extended as if clutching a large orb, then his fist clenched, the black leather squeaking. Around her, five troopers made fluttering grabs for their throats. The men gasped and wheezed, each turning pale, then purple. Blood streamed like tears out of the rims and corners of their eyes as the blood vessels burst. One pitched backwards, two slid to their knees, one slumped sideways into the arms of a comrade, the last emitted a strangled shriek and fell face first onto the mess table, crimson rivulets running from his eyes, lips and nose to pool beneath his cheek. Leia gasped, retreating from the dying man with a shuffle of her feet.

Vader's mechanically assisted breathing was the solitary sound for a few stunned long moments. The fear flowed like a sickly ichor around him. With a clang, the double doors at the end of the hall opened to admit four helmeted and fully armed stormtroopers, who marched to stand at attention behind the towering Dark Lord. He calmly addressed the recent arrivals.

"Take the Princess to the detention medical, then to her cell." Vader's mask rotated to take in the assemblage of attackers," this level of treatment for the prisoner was not authorized."

Two of the new troopers removed her binders, they grabbed Leia roughly by the upper arms, lifting her off the table, she groaned and stumbled against the guard on her left. In response, they hoisted her upright, draping her arms over their shoulders and carrying her slack form between them. She distantly realized her boots were no longer touching the deck as they hauled her up. She faded into half-consciousness, barely registering the stark gleaming floors through her swollen eyes. None of the accompanying four stormtroopers said a word to her. They did not seem bent on to be parading her through the ship, rather adhering to their assigned duty.

Leia clenched her eyes shut as the glare of a brightly lit med center appeared behind the layered heavy door sets of a secured facility. The troopers dragged, no – carried her tiny frame forward to drop her unceremoniously into a rigid backed plasteel chair. In front of them was a clear partition with a waist-high receiving desk, and a bored human medical technician with the rank of a captain on his breast. One stormtrooper stepped forward, saluting crisply.

"Prisoner requires medical attention by command of Lord Vader." The digitized low alto of a female stormtrooper's voice informed the med-tech. Leia's head rose in surprise, _had they_ –?

The man's eyes looked sharply from the troopers to Leia and back again. He removed a datapad from the desk, stepped through a sliding barrier with a multi armed medical droid following him. He approached Leia, absently flipping through screens on his datapad. He crouched in front of her, tilting her chin up with a vinyl gloved hand.

"Mm. Subjected to the hospitality of some of our comrades I see." He moved her head from side to side, assessing her. It was gentle, professional but the similarity of the range of motion was a reminder of how she had been man-handled earlier. Leia flinched involuntarily, nearly swaying sideways out of her chair. The med-tech tsked, pulling out a handheld antiseptic field generator, passing it over her limp form as the droid approached her with a hypospray. Leia's arm twitched as the fluids entered her system. Her vision narrowed into that too familiar aperture, once again. And then it went black.

She heard a voice, desperate, distant and dim.

" _Leia!"_

Still fighting against the inky darkness, she suddenly felt the cold slap of metal against her cheek. Leia snapped open her eyes to see the looming form of Vader, the ebon and chrome sphere of an IT-O interrogator droid. A primitive plunger-type syringe extended from its carapace and servo-repulsors humming, it drifted in to view from behind the towering Dark Lord.

"And now, your highness, we will discuss the location of your hidden rebel base,"

She cringed in horror as it approached, scrambling to retreat. Vader extended his hand languidly, and an icy grip seized her limbs. Leia struggled to move, and Vader merely clenched his fingers inward and the invisible hold on her body tightened. The inky hovering sphere of the IT-O injected its vile potion into her thigh. She screamed as the liquid fire burned its way into her system, her mind and senses' defenses weakening.

Then Vader sank his talons into her mind, clawing, scrabbling, tearing at her mental walls. Leia reeled, his violation of her mind as keen as that of the soldiers upon her physical body; with scars that could not be seen, yet never faded.

" _Leia_!" the distressed cry of a warm voice tugged her out of the nightmare's grasp. There was a brief sensation of vertigo and she was thrust into another terrible incident from her imprisonment on the Death Star.

Leia was in the same cell again, mind and body numb from being sleep-deprived, drugged and strung-out on stress from torture. The cell door slid up and a trio of stormtroopers peered in.

"This one?" one trooper queried.

"Yeah, scheduled for termination," another affirmed.

She could hear the lascivious sneer from behind the third stormtrooper's helmet's vocoder.

"Well then, let's have at her."

Her memory blacked again as she yet again heard the voice. " _Godsdammit Princess_ ," it pleaded. The tone was gruff, commanding, it yanked her back out of the cell. And then some dark force overtook her again and swept her onto the bridge of the Death Star.

"You may fire when ready," Tarkin ordered the gunnery officers in the chill tones of his core-world accent.

"WHAT!?" Leia had nearly shrieked, betrayed. Tarkin mocked her trust and chided her.

"Dantooine is too remote to provide an effective demonstration. But don't worry, we will deal with your rebel friends soon enough." Tarkin waggled a scolding finger at her, clucking, his gaunt features impassive.

Leia struggled and protested, the durasteel grip of Vader's hands pinning her to his front. She gasped as the eight green beams of the superweapon's lasers met at an apex, combining their energies to pierce the kyber-strong heart of her homeworld Alderaan. The emerald and sapphire jewel of her homeworld bursting from within into a trillion pinpoints of light and snuffed lives. A nauseating wave of external mass terror and grief drowned her senses and she felt Vader intake a harsh mechanical breath as she stumbled against him. The Princess could have sworn Vader stumbled as well.

" _-wake up!"_ the gruff voice of comfort outside of her onslaught of memories begged. And another different voice joined it.

" _Child,"_ the newer second voice addressed her. It was distinctly female; gravelly, ancient, wise and _kind_. " _Child, you must awaken._ "

Yet, Leia's unconscious continued to assail her.

Leia tumbled into another memory, this one so far and so distant; that it was more feeling than distinct recollection. The med-center room was antiseptic, white, with shutters that hinted at a starfield beyond. Leia's adopted father Bail stood at a short distance away, alongside a small wizened green being. Both watching solemnly the handsome ginger-haired Jedi that cradled Leia in his arms. The Jedi leaned in close to a woman - whose beauty was angelic, beautiful, exquisite and pure. Leia reached up a chubby hand toward that dark-haired angel, to soothe the woman as she gasped in denial, pain and grief.

"Obi-Wan," the woman addressed the Jedi, her chest heaving, "there is good in him. I know. I know this."

And though the woman's chocolate-colored eyes closed and her breath left her ever so slowly upon the cusp of her last word, Leia felt the great sundering of something within her infant self. She thrashed her infant limbs and cried out, wailing for her lost mother.

"Noooo!" Leia screamed. She was unaware whether her waking form had screamed as well, but the sound and pain thundered out of her in all dimensions. She was thrust out of the sterile confines of the med-center, avoiding being sucked in yet again in to the current of visions and memories that swept by her at ever increasing velocity. The colors of their passing becoming a muddy blur, then streaming by so fast the blur became white – intense white all around her, limitless, blinding.

Gravity seized Leia, pulling her down to the horizontal plane in that blinding whiteness. She knelt on its pristine surface, its contours indistinguishable from the walls or ceiling. She sobbed into her hands, the fingers pressing against her closed lids, vainly attempting to stem the flow of tears. The agony of her losses pressed down on her, threatening to grind her soul into the millennias' layers of ice that lay beneath her corporeal body.

" _Child, your eyes have seen almost too much. So much pain_ , " the gravelly female's speech was tangible, close. Leia rotated on her knees to confront the source.

A small orange-skinned female biped being with luminous eyes housed behind thick goggles stood before Leia. Her clothes and cap were homespun, tribal and earthy. A significant wealth of bangles and chains decorated her wrists and torso. The old woman peered intently at Leia, adjusting the focus on her thick lenses. She smiled kindly at the Princess, her pinched and wrinkled features both serene and wry.

" _What healing you seek, child, cannot be found in memory. It can only come from an open heart."_


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: warning: UnBetaed angst. Nor do I own any of this. Disney does, and George used to. And I thank them both.

Sorry! Most of this and part of the following chapter was damned-near done a year ago. Then, Carrie died…. I think you can figure out the rest.

Remember- Comments make baby Wookiees smile

Timeline: Star Wars rebellion era. pre-ESB Hoth. This chapter section is a Force vision.

* * *

 **Grasping Perception**

 **Chapter 6**

* * *

Amidst the stark endless realm of white, a manifestation of whatever dream or unconscious realm that it represented, in a quiet eddy of the Force; Princess Leia Organa sat on her hip, face to face with the diminutive wizened alien standing before her. Swiping at her tear tracks, Leia cocked her head quizzically at the other woman.

"Who _are_ you?" the princess demanded. She ran her hand over her head cautiously, feeling for the familiar coronet of braids. Looking down at her legs and then at each arm she recognized her snowsuit from Hoth. _Okay then, that's at least somewhat normal_ , Leia confirmed. Then calming, she took in their surroundings, "Where am I — are we?" she corrected.

The orange skinned creature's pursed lips spread into a warm thin-lipped smile.

"I am a friend of your friend, he knows me as Maz," her speech ground like the loose gravel of a riverbed; a soothing cadence with an ancient, underlying bedrock of wisdom. Waving her four-digit hand to take in their infinite surroundings, Maz continued, "This is the space between spaces. A place in between heartbeats, hidden in the Force."

"…the Force," Leia mulled it over, before responding brightly, "You're Luke's friend, he talks to? But I thought that was Obi—"

"No!" the being called Maz chuckled, "I am no Jedi. And as much as I would like to; I have not met the young Skywalker…Yet."

 _Okay, not one of Luke's specters. My own imaginary friend then._

"But—" Leia was confused now. The Princess's brow furrowed. She turned her head aside and muttered, "This is one those kriffin' crazy dreams again."

 _It is still, in all probability_ — _Skywalker's fault._ Leia concluded silently.

"I want out. I want to wake up. Right. Now." Leia fixed on Maz.

"Ho ho!" Maz guffawed and nudged Leia's arm. "I see now that which Han had in his eyes when he was visiting my tavern last." She moved to Leia, bracelets and beads jingling, crouching just a little to focus her goggles on the seated Princess.

 _Han?_ — _Solo?_

Leia flinched, recovered and then met Maz's disconcerting gaze defiantly, "Solo—It figures. The only thing that scoundrel has in his eyes is money." Leia groused.

"It makes for a rich combination of emerald, copper and gold. Don't you think?" Maz shot back.

Leia's jaw clenched, her teeth grinding. The princess felt a heat in her cheeks, as that particular scoundrel's gold-flecked hazel irises sprang to Leia's mind. _Damn._ She pinched the bridge of her nose. Not only was Solo in her dreams, often in highly inappropriate ways, but now his friends were visiting her unconscious realm? She paced mentally, trying to comprehend the universe's twisted sense of humor.

Decidedly, NOT fair.

"Goddesses! You have _got_ to be kidding me," fumed the Princess, rolling her eyes, hoping for any form of divine intervention.

Maz cackled, "Han might be a veteran Sabacc gambler. But when it comes to certain emotions, that boy has a very hard time concealing anything. Especially when it is so new, present and powerful in his mind. Child, you must know the boy cares so very deeply that it frightens him. As it does you _. "_

 _Kriffing Solo's fault, AND Skywalker's I bet._ Leia ran a palm across her brow, barely listening, still making a heavenward appeal.

Maz barked with laughter. A warm sound that spoke of a life fully lived. Lived with wisdom, humor, friendship and love. It reminded Leia of the rolling titters of her aunts on Alderaan. Tia, Rouge and Celly; on the south veranda of the palace gossiping lasciviously over gilded cups of tea, oblivious or at least heedless of the five year old princess studying in a corner. Until Leia would come racing around their knees after their pittins when her lessons were done. The tales of their youth that those widows, spinsters and ladies wove over their tea and embroidery, would remain with the young princess for the rest of her life. Half-truth romantic narratives that rekindled a time when those older women were bold, independant – almost reckless. To the knee-high child-princess listening in, it was fascinating and empowering.

Leia blushed.

"Do not worry, child. I only have both your best interests at heart." Maz soothed. Leia's answering smirk was highly skeptical. She was all too familiar with the delusive characters of her dreamscape. In Leia's sleeping mind, it was as often as hopeless for them as it was for her.

The usual subject of Leia's unconscious often included replays or variations on the trauma she had suffered through during her imprisonment and torture by Darth Vader. That shared equal footing in her dreams with the horror of watching the destruction of her homeworld. As a result; she barely slept, dreading the flood of memories. Instead, working to distract, to the point of collapse. If she did finally succumb to exhaustion, infrequent luck would bring her images of her lost home, memories of family, friends, and ever so rarely it could be dreamless; that was the best, because there was no answering emptiness upon waking.

...And again; there were those intense ones with a certain Corellian smuggler. Ones where Leia awoke in a different kind of sweat, one tinged with the heat of arousal. Those didn't count, because...well...

But never had her dreams engaged her in conversation with a friendly stranger, never mind a little orange being. _Though there was a that green fellow who'd visit my dreams when I was very young,_ she recalled. Something about? She didn't know—comparing? the two beings; both wizened beyond human comprehension, both serene, wry, and kind. They felt…Right. Right and good.

And immeasurably powerful. Maybe this occasion would be different.

Maz continued. "You are in mortal danger. There are Dark powers attracted to the conflict within you. Your anger, your pain, your fear, has escaped beyond the limits of your shields. They are like an accretion disk. drawing in more and more mass into itself—accumulating, growing. Every night will be darker, with darker visions and nightmares. You are losing control. You have already begun to lash out at those who would be closest to you—even seeking out their own greatest pain to add to your own." Leia blinked at Maz, incredulous.

"No-one is close to me. Not anymore." Leia replied hoarsely.

Leia retreated, scrambling on her knees. She noted that the surface beneath Maz's feet was resolving into an eroded stone floor in a halo around her, Stained and trod by millennia of traffic, it was as homey and weathered as its owner.

"I am a leader who fights against injustice and tyranny." She jutted her chin up at Maz. "My pain is for my people, for all those the Empire has harmed. I will give my life, for the Rebellion, if I have to."

Maz appeared sad. "Pain? Is that what fuels you? To what purpose? What good can come of that? " The elderly being seemed to speak into the air off to her right. "Listen to this! And you left this _one_ without guidance?"

No reply emitted from the empty space where Maz directed her reproach. Yet the matronly being shook her her head in exasperation. She turned her attention back to the young Princess, studying Leia. After a tense moment, Maz let loose a tired sigh, speaking once again to that section of air. This time with an angry, righteous edge. "You've underestimated her," she growled again.

Maz seemed to listen for a few seconds, then shook her head ruefully.

"Child, " Maz smiled, returning to Leia, "for most of us there is no visible line between light and dark. We are all some mixture of both. It's our actions that define us. The Force is all things, in everything. But, in the end;the choices we make, the actions we take, these shape our lives, our destinies."

Maz looked carefully at that empty spot once more, "There are those who see destiny as unequivocal. Insisting on fates construed from subjectively viewed prophecies." The ancient being stopped to listen to some unspoken reply, then pointed again at Leia. "This child has lost _everything_. Twice! Finally, she has been gifted with the power of choice as a result. Destiny has failed her. " After a pause, Maz shook her head, smirking sideways at the Princess. "The Living Force is not her guide. She will only follow what she chooses. It will be her companion, her equal! She will be a force of destiny— _Hers._ "

Leia dropped her head, staring at her knees. _This was Luke's territory. Wasn't it?_ "That's...No… I just want to win this war. To stop the Empire. To bring Palpatine, Vader and the rest to justice." Leia's fists balled, her nails digging into her palms. "To avenge Alderaan."

"And then?" Maz prodded kindly, but insistent.

" _What_ , then?'

"When justice, victory and vengeance are in your hands…What _then,_ Princess?"

 _Oh, that one hurt._ Leia became uncomfortable. She had no answer. Did she have dreams? She could no longer remember. There were always fairy-tale fantasies; a lover, or a spouse, maybe children, perhaps a life beyond duty. With her world gone, it was the only fairytale she could afford to imagine. But even that was a guilty pleasure. One that she could ill-afford, when the next battle stood on the horizon.

Besides, it's not like she expected to actually _survive_ to see the end of this war.

"I-, I don't—" Leia pressed her fingers to her cheek, breathing heavily. She didn't dare, didn't want to think of an _if_ , with...with… _No_. _For the last two years, he's been on the verge of taking off. He's always leaving. Always_ —

 _Two years_ , Leia thought ironically, _two years and he's always been there. He's always got an excuse, a new reason to stay for one more day._ Leia snorted. An uncomfortable question entered her mind.

 _Why does he stay?_

"Child," Maz smiled sadly. Leia heard, but ignored her; lost in her thoughts—daring to dream.

 _Is it me?_

Placing a ring laden hand on Leia's trembling fist. "I want you to promise me, and—" Maz raised her index finger at Leia, giving her an affectionate squeeze, "promise yourself that you will find the answer to that question."

Leia sawed at her bottom lip. How could she justify thinking about a future beyond? _How?_ Everything was distinguished by duty in the young princess's existence. _Dreams!?_ Leia's earliest memories were about pomp, ceremony, protocol, duty. Growing up amidst the spires of her family's palace, she had had access to anything she could ever want, except choice. Everything was arranged and selected for her. All her life, Leia was carefully molded and sculpted, to perform the duties imposed by a noble status, to serve Alderaan, to serve the people.

 _And all that…The world, its culture, its people…Everything, is gone. Just gone_.

Duty to her people. It was a beautiful, honorable destiny—a birthright.

 _Gone forever. What future is there for me now?_

Leia dug her finger into her palms, the red line of pain marking a path through the fog of loss. At the end of her duty, she saw fire, battle and, and—not glory? Vengeance, there was that. The sear of loss transferred to scald another, to vanquish them and scar them irreparably. If the Alliance could free itself from this torpor on Hoth, and truly break the chains of the Empire's tyranny, if they could retake Coruscant, Chandrilla, and the other core worlds; Leia would ensure the Empire were properly repaid a debt…Preferably in blood.

She could do it. She could. No-one would fault her for it. She was a princess with an entire army at her behest. What wonders could she accomplish if the stolid freedom fighters of the Rebellion could be harnessed into a…a…

"I see your eyes child, you perceive an old, easy, heavily-trod path." Maz broke into Leia's thoughts. "One that is always open to the Dark Side. And like the one you are already on—it is a lonely one."

 _She's right, about what I've—no_ , might _become_.

Leia hardened, she couldn't mourn what she never claimed to have. What her heart wanted though—

Hazel eyes, powerful arms in a warm embrace, laughter, attraction, a wry confidant; all Han. And sky-blue eyed Luke; optimism, innocence, sunshine, another friendship - so close— like a sibling. Solid reputable friends; like Shara, Evaan and Carlist. Hope; like Shara and Kes's little boy Poe — an angelic curly-haired sprite, born in the throes of war. A family; maybe even one for Leia herself someday.

"No," Leia choked, the denial and lies tumbling out. "I had a duty. Have a duty." Leia hugged herself, rising to hide her expression from her dream's guest. A pang of loneliness shuddered through Leia. "I can't afford to be distracted, or worse; make myself vulnerable."

She glared at Maz, " I want out of here. Wake me up"

The little alien pulled at the air behind her and a polished wood and leather chair appeared, diminutively sized. She settled in, elbows on the armrests. The stone floor continued to emerge from the whiteness. Distantly, Leia could hear rough laughter, and the clanking of—kitchen wares?

Maz twitched, as if a small child was annoying her with inane prattle. "Pfsh!" She scoffed. "What do your soldiers fight for? The bodies of friends and family, rotting in the ground? The embers of a torched home? A planet turned to dust and vapor?" Maz slapped her hand on a stained wooden table that appeared beside her. Another manifestation of her domicile, Leia assumed.

"Of course!" snapped the Princess. "All those things and more!"

"And _why_ do they fight for those?" Maz's irises were huge behind her goggles, challenging. "Why do they risk all for that?. That which was lost? Or might be lost? The loss does not sustain them."

The reasons were at the tip of Leia's tongue. Things easily spilled, easily followed _. Vengeance. Anger. Pain._ Leia bit her tongue, recognizing the slip, she could practically hear family friend Fess Ilee's stern warning.

" _These lead to the Dark Side."_

A rumble ran through the terrain beneath their feet. The blank expanse of the distant horizon began to darken off to Leia's left. A roiling cloud, gray at the edges, poured forth. Acknowledging the disturbance with a tilt of her head, Maz rolled a glass tumbler of amber liquid between her fingers, watching the play of emotions across the princess's countenance. Adjusting the lenses on her goggles, Maz's grinding alto spoke once more.

"What is a home, a friend, a family to you? What do they represent? What do they make us feel? What is it that makes us better beings with these things?"

Leia's throat tightened, comprehension pricking at her eyes.

 _Love?_

"Therein Child, lies your future," finished Maz.

Leia jumped to her feet, "You're right. The rebellion wasn't about revenge, it's about fighting for a better _future_. My father devoted his life to just that purpose. A better future." Leia's tone shuddered, or maybe the ground did. She couldn't be sure." What future did Papa have?" She became bitter, "What future did I get? What do I have to look forward to?!" She crossed her arms staring off into the distance. The distant gloom slid forward, storming at it's heart. If she looked hard enough, there was a Darkness coalescing into a figure from her nightmares. _Vader._

"Those things are gone." Maz agreed sadly. She gave Leia a grim, understanding smile. "But the future? Yes, yes, always. Whether it's for your next meal, next day, or next year. But the _love_ that is conjured by the friends, the family, the home. Past, present or future. Yes. Child, you know this. That is what you fight for. That is what you must find again. Within and without."

Leia became hoarse. " I can never have that." She knew what Maz alluded to, but did not have the courage to voice it aloud.

Maz was shocked, "Why? Did Bail Organa raise his daughter to not expect hap-"

"Don't talk of my father! You don't even know me. I don't even know what I'm doing here!" Leia shook off Maz's grip. Fists balled at her sides, Leia stalked to and fro beside Maz and her table. Maz pushed her chair away and stood on its cushioned seat, becoming eye-level with the fuming Princess.

"This is not just anger, much of this is fear." Maz concluded.

"I fear nothing." Leia sniffed defiantly.

"You fear losing those you love." Maz pointed at Leia's chest.

"Love!? I have no one left to lose, much less love!" Leia cried incredulously, slapping away the accusing finger.

The stone floor cracked as Leia vented her frustration. As Leia fumed, the fault continued on, fading into the pale enshrouded distance of the representative realm Leia was in. Whatever remained of Maz's reflected environment was rapidly reverting into a shifting granular whiteness. Wisps of what might be either sand or snow swirled around their feet. Leia stumbled, turning around to survey her surroundings. A deep shiver of dread ran through her body at the distant sound of mechanical respiration.

"He's here," Leia gasped. Instinctively she looked for a weapon, a shelter, or an exit; any means of defense or escape. She was trapped in the Force vision. In the middle of a numbing white expanse—helpless.

All she could find was that roiling mass of grey in the whiteness, darkening and congealing at it's center. Stepping backward, her heel caught on a solid object, sending her to tumble to her rear—legs arched over it. Leia cleared away the white dusting on top, and the tousled blonde head of Luke appeared, clad in snow gear—pale, cold, and neatly lifeless. The young would-be Jedi's face was terribly ravaged and frostbitten. His blue tinged lips were flecked with strips of chapped skin and blood. Luke seemed to waver indistinctly; almost solid, almost real, but neither. The intended effect though, was devastating.

"Luke!" Leia cried. She called out for Maz. "I–, We can't lose him. He's the last of the Jedi. The last hope."

"There is another," Maz stood adjacent to Leia, partially shrouded by the swirling whiteness. " These are only whispers of possibilities. But do you think you could survive losing him?"

"Of course! But—" Leia took a deep breath, "But it would feel like losing a part of myself. I don't know why. I feel connected to him. But not in _that way._ I'm scared to think if I did, if I let him get closer—" Leia shook her head vehemently, " No...no, NO. It just feels wrong. I _care_ for Luke, yes. But...It's not like—"

"Like?" Maz drifted away and the whiteness settled into another snow covered form between the two women.

Leia recognized it immediately and lunged at it. She hauled at the white cotton fabric of the shoulder seam, turning him onto his back. Clearing the wet tendrils of hair away from his face, Leia cradled Han's head in her lap. He looked stricken, exhausted, and barely coherent. The lapel of his shirt fell open and Leia saw the recognizable marks of Imperial torture across the breadth of the Corellian's broad chest. Like Luke's limp form; Han's was wavering in and out of the drifting mist—indistinct. Solid, then fading.

"Stop this!" Leia shouted. "Get out! I don't want this! Take your blasted Force vision elsewhere. Visit Luke! He's the one you want."

The nightmare shape of Vader coalesced into being, a few meters from Leia and the broken dream forms of Luke and Han. The cyborg Sith-lord strode through Luke's crumpled shape—dissipating it. He stopped a couple of strides before Leia. The slow tide of his fury rolled off of him.

"Give me Skywalker," the monstrous rumble of the Dark Lord demanded.

Leia's eyes and body rose to glare into those soulless obsidian lenses. Vader could not break her in real life. There was no way some dream spectre would. She stood straight and defiant, the phantom vision of Han limp at her feet.

Vader then cocked his head at her, as if listening or studying her.

"Where is he? The rebel, Skywalker." Vader was now directly before Leia, the armoured legs brushing against her chest. "He is not with you. Is he?"

Leia said nothing. Vader's mask was implacable. He made as if to turn away, but instead stooped and scooped up the figure of Solo by the scruff of his neck and collar. Leia's heart jumped into her throat despite knowing that this was not real.

Not real. _Not_. Real.

"This one, then. His connection to Skywalker is strong too. Very strong because—" Vader concentrated. Then his voice became soft, curious even, "He loves you both. And you," he jabbed at Leia, "you resonate strongly with both of them."

"Catch one, the others will follow." Vader concluded, and seemed to grin triumphant beneath that nightmare black mask. "Princess, you have exposed a weakness. It will make things easy."

"You can't take them," objected Leia angrily. "You. Can't. Have. Them." she snarled now. A fury began to build in her gut. She hissed and spat at Vader, cursing and damning him for threatening those she cared for. For taking all that she had been. And what she could have been. For all that he was, and had done, the monster.

Vader shifted his stance, holding the vaporous form of Solo up like a laboratory specimen. The Dark Lord studied the Corellian, then began to crush him slowly, strangling him - like trap-caught vermin.

 _Han!?_ "Not him. No!"

"He is a weakness." Vader declared. "You are compromised—softened by these… bonds." Vader tossed aside the phantom's body and loomed over Leia. "Give me Skywalker and I will spare you and your _friend_ from the fate awaiting the rest of your Rebel scum." Vader paused, then added in an almost eerily placating tone. "You have power. I sensed it before when you resisted me. Join us! If his Majesty, the Emperor doesn't make you a concubine, Princess; perhaps you will be allowed to keep your little toy pirate for a time—before you will have to put down your pet. Your criminal companion can be sedated, lobotomized, or forcefully dominated to be your plaything. Just give me the boy—Skywalker."

Disgust and horror churned in Leia's throat, "Kriff you, Vader."

The Dark Lord's mask's lenses were centimeters from her. Leia viewed the red-tinged, distorted reflection of herself in them. "Then, I _will_ kill him. Kill them all. You can watch. And I _will_ have Skywalker."

A dense ball of rage formed in Leia's stomach. Clenching her fists, she growled at her nemesis, punctuating the single word she uttered with vociferous outrage. "Never!" Leia threw her hands forward and the form of Vader stumbled back. He made as if to grab for her, until a pulse of invisible power surged out from Leia, throwing him further. The Sith-Lord became granular, his familiar shape dissolving away into the white. For the briefest second, Leia glimpse the scorched remains of a humanoid torso — hairless, scarred, and terribly maimed. Then he was gone.

Stunned, Leia stared at the retreating dark mist. Leaving her blinking; back in the pale, empty dreamscape.

The surface beneath her feet rumbled. Her footing became uncertain.

"You are so much like your Father, child. So, so much. " Maz resumed dryly from beside her—as if nothing had happened; reappearing and noting the expanding crevasse. She began to rise to beyond Leia's eyeline. Or rather, Leia was dropping. The Princess pinwheeled her arms for balance. The ground groaned beneath them. An icy vapor steamed from the crevice between the two women.

Snow, then, becoming real—tactile. The ground slickened with snowswept ice.

"Kriff!" the swear flew from Leia's lips, unbidden. She flailed, unsteady. Her previous ire was rapidly replaced by panic.

Maz threw her head back, chortling at the curse, and reached down to Leia. "We must return now. You know how to find me. Come, the Light will be with us."

Leia scrambled as the wall of ice rumbled above her. Maz's four-fingered withered hand beckoned. Apparently, Leia was leaving this dream realm whether she liked it or not.

"Grab hold. Take it! Find the path to that which you have lost. And your future is waiting for you there too."

The Princess chewed her bottom lip. Part of her knew what Maz meant. The other portion, didn't want to, didn't dare to dream, didn't want to lose—

"Become whole." Maz invited kindly.

Leia blinked and slapped her hand into Maz's welcoming grasp.

* * *

A/N: Two points if you know where "the space between spaces" quote is from.


End file.
